


i heard you're suffering (come be a wild thing)

by somethingdifferent



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Americana, Canonical Character Death, F/M, POV Alternating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 08:57:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3523265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingdifferent/pseuds/somethingdifferent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He stops himself from asking what she's running from.</p>
<p>It's not like he doesn't know the feeling.</p>
<p>[raven/wick; americana au]</p>
            </blockquote>





	i heard you're suffering (come be a wild thing)

_ What's in the world? What's in the world? What's in the hearts of pretty girls? _  
SUNSET RUBDOWN

 

_ To be alive at all is to have scars. _  
JOHN STEINBECK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i.

 

The jacket she's wearing is three sizes too big. Her boyfriend's, probably, or maybe her brother's. It's immediately apparent to anyone in the bar that she's not from nearby, not from anywhere they know.

(He wants more than anything to rip it off of her, see how it looks on the floor of his room.)

Wick buys her a drink.

 

-

 

He's an engineer. Anywhere else, that'd mean he's in the business of making money. Here, though, that means he repairs kitchen appliances, makes new machines out of old parts for chump change. Makes new things out of old things.

Raven glances around his room (a motel room, because he still can't think of this place as permanent, not even after three weeks), seems to decide it's suitable for her needs, and discards the jacket on a chair.

It's definitely her boyfriend's, he thinks as she reaches for him.

 

-

 

She's a runner, that much is clear. Looks just out of high school, smooth skin, wide eyes, and everything, and after they have sex she turns away, hides her face in his pillow like she might start to cry.

He doesn't know what to do except to make some joke about his performance, and when she laughs at him it's heartbreaking.

 

-

 

He stops himself from asking what she's running from.

It's not like he doesn't know the feeling.

 

-

 

_You keep moving, Kyle,_ his father told him, _you're gonna realize pretty quick that there's nothing a new place can give you that you haven't seen before somewhere else._

He left town anyway, with fifty dollars and the car he put back together in high school, if only to prove his old man wrong.

Seven states and two years later, he still hasn't.

 

-

 

She tells him she's a mechanic, and he can't help but laugh.

"Must be destiny," he says.

Raven smiles, for the first time he's seen, and when she stops he wishes more than anything he could see it again.

 

-

 

When she leaves, she doesn't say goodbye. She rolls up the sleeves of the jacket so the ends don't hang down over her hands, and it looks so sad he wants to die a little for it.

At least, he thinks, he's found what you can't find anywhere else.

 

 

 

ii.

 

She left the day after the funeral. Maybe it was a selfish thing to do - it's not like she was the only one who lost Finn. Clarke had cried too, but more contained than her, quieter, without a single scream. Even when she wept she was beautiful, she was beautiful and whole and she loved him, too.

Raven wanted more than anything to punch her lights out.

She hitched from D.C. until she didn't know any more names on the map.

 

-

 

When Wick opens the door, he can't cover up his surprise at seeing her.

"Back for more?" he finally says, smiling. "Knew you would never be able to resist all of _this_."

"Shut up," she tells him, walking into the room without an invitation. She's almost certain she doesn't need one.

 

-

 

He tries to open the windows, but they're bolted shut.

"Let's go for a ride," he suggests, and Raven knows she could say no, he wouldn't hold it against her.

"Sure," she agrees.

 

-

 

_I love you,_ he had said, but the words didn't mean what she thought they did.

Most of his didn't.

 

-

 

She gets angry easily, gets mad and shouts and breaks things. Raven's a mechanic, it's not like she doesn't know how to fix them.

But for all of that, she could never be mad at Finn. For all he did for her, even with all he did _to_ her.

Ain't it funny how life works out that way.

 

-

 

"Was this his? Your jacket?"

Wick's driving now, has been for the past two hours. The hand he keeps on the wheel has a cigarette in it - every so often he takes a drag, blows the smoke out of the open window, taps the ash out on the highway. Turns to her and smiles so she can see all his teeth.

"You think we can make it to Arizona?" she asks instead, knowing it's answer enough.

She hides her face in the map and taps her fingers against her brace.

Even with the paper between them, she can feel his eyes on her.

 

-

 

He drives until she can see the sun coming up, then he pulls over to rest.

They fall asleep together, tangled up in the backseat.

 

 

 

iii.

 

"If we keep on this road, we could get to California."

When he wakes up, she's already behind the wheel, poring over the maps like she's studying for a test. She turns around, grinning at how he rubs his hand stupidly against his cheek, his hair sticking up where he slept on it wrong.

"You ever seen the Pacific Ocean?" she asks, watching as he climbs out of the car to stretch his limbs.

"I could," he replies, then opens the door to get into the passenger seat.

 

-

 

He kept going west, further and further out, like the farther inland he got the better he would feel. Fixed things and built things and broke things, all of them useless. Never had more than two hundred dollars to spare, never had anything more than what he could take in his car.

High school was what, six years ago? He should have grown up by now.

"Goddamn engineers," she says, as if that can explain it.

 

-

 

"I'll settle down," he tells her. "My dad's right. I can't keep going like this forever. One day, I swear."

For a second, he has no clue why he would make that promise.

She smiles, a passing car lighting up her hair so it looks gold, and then he knows why.

 

-

 

They get mistaken for a couple at the bar, and she corrects the person so fast Wick thinks he should feel insulted. But she has three drinks in her, she has her head leaning against her wrist, and he doesn't say anything about it.

"Finn used to have this thing he said when everything was going bad for us - 'only good things ahead.' I never agreed with him on that. We used to argue about it, actually." She swipes her hand under her eyes. "I don't know why I did that."

"Well maybe he had it wrong," Wick hears himself saying. If his words are a little off, a little slurred, so be it. "Maybe it's not only good things ahead. Maybe it's just - _things ahead_."

Raven laughs then; it's only mostly at him.

 

-

 

"He was drunk. I mean, he isn't a big drinker, he never drives when he's had anything more than two beers. Clarke broke up with him. He drove home."

They're both in the back seat, sweating, shivering, somewhere near the border of California. She's got her good leg draped over his knee. He presses his thumb against her ankle and doesn't look at her, knows she doesn't want him to see her.

"The little girl died, too," she says.

 

-

 

He thinks he's forgotten how to care about something that much.

He puts his arm around her shoulders, and she cries into his t-shirt.

(He's trying to remember.)

 

-

 

When they get to the beach, she waits for a minute in the car. She puts her hand up against her forehead to stop the sun from getting in her eyes and turns to him like she's waiting for him to say something.

"Is it everything you thought it would be?" he asks finally, thinks he got it right.

"I don't know," she says, shaking her head. "We haven't seen it yet."

 

 

 

 


End file.
